


our slow, unreckoning hearts

by estora (orphan_account)



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Corvo Bianco, Gift Fic, Gwent (The Witcher), M/M, Near Death Experiences, One Shot, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-05 23:51:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14629635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/estora
Summary: His expression gave nothing away, but Geralt knew Emhyr; he was probably disappointed he was alive at all, because it rendered his obscene outward display of emotion towards his daughter completely obsolete now.Emhyr survives an assassination attempt. To protect him, Ciri sends him away with Geralt to the vineyardwhere he deals poorly with his emotions.





	our slow, unreckoning hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astolat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat/gifts).



**one.**

If he’d gone in pursuit of the assassin, Geralt might have caught him.

Such as it was, he was the only thing keeping Emhyr var Emreis, former Emperor of Nilfgaard et al, alive.

The scent of blood, sluicing over his hands from the wound Emhyr’s side, clouded his senses; it was mixed with something sour and sharp, spreading through the little blood he had left in his body. Geralt’s gloves, holding the gash closed, seared and started to corrode. Emhyr would either bleed out, or the poison would reach his heart – it didn’t matter which.

He used one hand to fumble for a white honey potion, wrenching the cork out with his teeth like a wild dog tearing into a slab of meat, then spat it aside and pressed the vial to Emhyr’s pale, thin lips. “Drink,” he ordered. The liquid spilled from the corner of Emhyr’s mouth as he clumsily obeyed, choking on the potion and his own toxic blood. Emhyr tried to say something about the manner of his assassination attempt lacking a “certain degree of sophistication” – “Are you seriously _disappointed_ by your own _assassination attempt?_ ” Geralt snapped – but Emhyr's strength left him faster than his wits and he fell into silenced, laboured breathing.

The commotion around them faded into the background. Geralt felt it all, heard it in the back of his mind – the thundering of soldiers’ boots in time with thundering hearts, the screams and sobs of the nobles cowering in the corners of the room, the flash of Ciri’s powers at the periphery of his vision while she pursued the assassin. Emhyr’s eyes – wide, pained, but cognisant – started to glaze.

“Stay with me,” Geralt ordered.

Emhyr didn’t look like he was listening. “Cirilla,” he murmured.

Geralt looked up, frantic as he felt Emhyr’s life trickling away through his fingers like water, but Ciri was already at his side.

“No,” she moaned, falling to her knees. “No, no, no –”

“Ciri,” Geralt said, “I’m sorry, there isn’t much time. He –”

“He’ll be fine,” Ciri snapped. “Help is coming, he’s going to be all right, you’ll see –”

Even dying, Emhyr managed to speak in his low, dulcet tones as if he were delivering an address, demanding attention. “Cirilla.”

“Be quiet. We’re going to –”

“Daughter. Look at me.”

She stopped her panicked motions and looked at him, her fierce green eyes meeting his fading ones. Emhyr’s shaking hand raised to her face with considerable effort, cusping her cheek.

“Forgive me, Cirilla,” he murmured. “Ciri. You deserved – better from me. Know that I love yo—”

“Stop it! Stop it, you don’t get to –”

Emhyr’s hand fell and his eyes closed.

* * *

**two.**

It was true he needed less sleep than the average human, but Geralt was feeling himself wearing out at the seams.

Ciri had slept even less, but that hadn’t quelled her restlessness. She paced outside Emhyr’s private room, back and forth, back and forth, wringing her wrists together and muttering to herself. Geralt watched her through tired eyes.

“He’s going to be all right, Ciri.”

“I know! I know, but that’s not why I –” She broke off, chewing her lower lip between her teeth and wringing her wrists. “He thought he was going to _die_ , Geralt.”

And now that he wasn’t, Ciri had no idea what to do with the fact that her biological father’s last words were going to be something she’d never anticipated hearing, let alone ever need to deal with on a personal level.

Geralt sighed. “Was it that surprising to hear?”

“Weren’t _you_ just a little bit taken aback?” Ciri exclaimed.

A little.

“But this is completely irrelevant to the current situation,” Ciri decided before Geralt could open his mouth to reply, setting it firmly out of her mind, the irony of this being something Emhyr would have done lost on her. Geralt decided not to point it out. “He’s not safe here. Not while the assassin is still out there. We don’t know who sent them, or why.”

She paced some more; Geralt watched her until she stopped and pinned him with a look.

“Geralt – I need your help.”

As if she ever needed to ask. He stood. “Anything.”

“Take him away from here,” Ciri said. “Far away.”

Geralt blinked. “Ciri?”

“Emhyr var Emreis died last night. The funeral will be held in a week’s time.”

When he’d said anything, he assumed he’d be sent to track the assassin, and as far as he knew Emhyr was still clinging to life. “Could just be that I haven’t slept in several days, but I’m not really following you here.”

Ciri had already vanished and reappeared by the table, the flare of blue-white light temporarily blinding Geralt. When he rubbed his eyes clear, he watched her scrawling down a letter. “You’ll give him this, when he wakes up,” Ciri said. “He’ll stay with you in your vineyard until I’ve rooted out every single last traitor in this palace – I’ll find the assassin, and I’ll find the person who hired him, but I need them to think my father is dead. They’ll have what they want, me as Empress without his influence –”

There was nothing Geralt could do to talk her out of it.

* * *

**three.**

Emhyr woke days later in the guest bedroom of Corvo Bianco’s newly refurbished estate. A normal person would have taken several attempts to rouse himself; probably woken and slipped back to unconsciousness and repeated confused questions, or groaned in pain, but Emhyr was as dignified in his underclothes and bandages as he was in the rest of his life. He opened his eyes, drew in his surroundings, and pushed himself up from the bed with fluid grace when his vision landed on Geralt sitting in the chair beside his bed.

“Witcher,” Emhyr said, tone betraying no emotion.

“Good,” Geralt said, uncrossing his legs, “you’re up.”

“What,” Emhyr var Emreis said, “might I be doing in Toussaint?”

Geralt nearly asked how Emhyr knew he was in Toussaint. He’d probably taken one whiff of the air, felt the temperature, analysed the grain of the wood on the walls, and placed himself accurately in his own Empire. Geralt amused himself with the idea of Emhyr being a Witcher in another life.

Instead of answering directly, Geralt said, “I think that’s something Ciri ought to explain.”

His expression gave nothing away, but Geralt knew Emhyr; he was probably disappointed he was alive at all, because it rendered his obscene outward display of emotion towards his daughter completely obsolete now. Geralt nearly rolled his eyes.

“She is here?” Emhyr asked carefully.

“No.” Geralt pulled the letter from the bedside table. “But you’d better read this first.”

* * *

**four.**

Emhyr didn’t say it in precise words – didn’t outwardly indicate it at all, in fact – but he was bored.

It was another week before he could leave the bed; a week after that before he was strong enough to physically leave the house and explore the gardens. He reordered the bookshelf three times in two days – first by author surname, then by surname within alphabetised categories, then pulled them all out again and ordered them by year of publication. He spoke to every single member of Geralt’s staff – introduced as Duny, an acquaintance on a healing retreat from a bandit attack – memorised the history of Corvo Bianco, sampled the wines, then went back to resorting the bookshelf.

Geralt caught him on his way past the main room. “Sit down.”

Emhyr was not accustomed to being ordered to do anything by anyone. His lips thinned. “I have been immobile for several weeks; I would prefer to stand.”

Geralt shoved the opposite chair out from under the table with his boot, scraping it along the floor. “Sit the fuck down, Emhyr.”

“Were I still Emperor, witcher –”

“Oh, please,” Geralt drawled. “I said and did much worse when you were still Emperor and all you did was raise your eyebrow at me. Yeah, just like that.”

Emhyr took the seat opposite him, and Geralt slid across a deck of cards.

“You ever play gwent?”

* * *

**five.**

“Was I –” Emhyr started to say, then corrected himself. “No, forgive me. This is not meant to be a question. I was a poor father to Cirilla, wasn’t I.”

Another two weeks had passed. Emhyr had settled – he still rearranged the bookshelf twice a week, and he left the estate every morning for a long walk – into their evening rounds of gwent over dinner, which often lasted long after dinner. The staff had cleared away their dishes and retired for the evening; it was approaching midnight, and Emhyr (who’d never played gwent prior to Geralt teaching him) was in the throes of thoroughly and humiliatingly defeating Geralt.

The sudden change in conversation wasn’t something Geralt felt prepared for. “Uh…” he said.

Emhyr raised a free hand to assuage Geralt’s attempts to fumble together a response. “You needn’t answer. I am aware of my own shortcomings – my mistakes.” Geralt supposed a near encounter with death would give anyone a new perspective on things. “A braver man than I would have been more upfront with Cirilla much sooner.”

“As opposed to waiting until your last breath to imply you could’ve done a better job?” Geralt couldn’t help but jab.

Emhyr’s only outward reaction to this was to set down his cards and stand, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

Geralt winced. “Emhyr, wait,” he said.

The former Emperor waited.

“I didn’t mean to mock you,” Geralt said, setting his own cards down to stand as well, in case he needed to grab Emhyr. “Just – you know. You _could_ have timed it a little better. That was the first time you ever told Ciri that you loved her. I think it was as much of a shock to her as it was to you.”

“I had largely thought the sentiment – implied.”

Geralt stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Didn’t your parents ever tell you they loved you?”

Emhyr blinked at him coolly.

“Family of few words, got it,” Geralt muttered. “Look, you definitely could’ve been a better father to Ciri. Listing your crimes isn’t my place, it’s hers, but… I don’t know. Seems to me like you’ve been doing your best to make up for a lot of it. When all this is over and you get to go home, I’m sure you two will have a lot to talk about.”

“Home,” Emhyr echoed, slowly returning to his chair to collect his cards. “You know, I’ve never called it that before.”

Geralt rolled his eyes. “Draw your cards, White Flame.”

“Ever insolent.”

“Don’t act like you don’t like it.”

* * *

**six.**

“You are lonely,” Emhyr said.

The night sky in Toussaint was fiercely beautiful – more so than any other part of the world, Geralt thought. It was late – long after midnight – and the fire was crackling and dying, kept alive only by Geralt’s occasional flick of his fingers to cast _igni_. Two empty bottles of Corvo Bianco red were on the dusty ground; a third, shared between him and Emhyr, was half-gone.

As much as the topic seemed appropriate, given the context, it wasn’t one Geralt wanted to discuss. “I don’t recall asking you for your opinion on the matter.”

“You did not need to; it’s quite obvious, I’m afraid.”

Irritated as he was, Geralt had to give him that. Four – five? Five – weeks into Emhyr’s stay at Geralt’s vineyard, it wouldn’t have been hard for him to draw that conclusion. Aside from the staff, Geralt had no guests – Vesemir was long gone, Yennefer and Triss simply no longer regular features of his life, and Ciri was busy being Empress and weeding out every single person involved in her father’s ‘death’. Regis wouldn’t return to Toussaint for a very long time; Dettlaff, no doubt, was keeping him occupied with his recovery. The only person who’d ever used the guest room was Emhyr.

“Yeah,” Geralt said, definitely inebriated and not even bothering to deny it, “I’m lonely. So fucking what?”

“So,” Emhyr murmured – equally drunk, but doing a much better job at hiding the fact, “it occurs to me that we are not – dissimilar.”

“Why,” Geralt snorted. “Are _you_ lonely?”

There was a pause, half a heartbeat too long, and Geralt choked on his drink.

“You are surprised?” Emhyr asked, nursing his winecup.

“S’pose not. Just didn’t – expect you to say it.”

Emhyr took a slow, deep drink from his winecup before continuing. “I am constantly surrounded by people. Staff, servants, advisers, councillors, nobles, all either in service to me or baying for my time and attention and blood. Even in Cirilla’s company, the only company I could be certain of that had no ulterior motive, I was not as personable as I should have been – treated her like another challenge, not a daughter. For most of my life I have never been alone, as such, but I’ve never cared for genuine company until –”

“Until you almost died?”

“No,” Emhyr said, setting his winecup down, “until I rather came to enjoy yours.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Of course I am; I wouldn’t say this to you sober.”

“Well, shit, Emhyr,” Geralt said with a grin, “I don’t half mind your company either. In fact –”

Emhyr’s lips pressed against his. Geralt stilled, unsure of what was happening, then groaned into the former Emperor of Nilfgaard’s mouth and returned the kiss, dropping his empty winecup to the ground and reaching to grasp Emhyr. His hand ended up around the back of his neck, holding him fiercely while the kiss tilted from firm but chaste to something more desperate, knocking the breath out of Geralt’s lungs and reeling his mind. They parted, breathing hard, resting their foreheads together.

“What…” Geralt panted.

“Do try,” Emhyr murmured, his fingers grazing across Geralt’s lips, his tongue stunned to silence, “not to ruin the evening, Geralt.”

Geralt shut the fuck up, and allowed Emhyr to press his mouth to his again.

* * *

**seven.**

Geralt woke before sunrise with a vicious hangover and all of his clothes on, neither of which was exactly satisfying to him when he remembered what happened. He groaned when he pushed himself to a sitting position, and found a cool cup of fresh water being pressed into his hands.

“Do you know how many years it has been since I last spent a true night underneath the stars?” Emhyr said, sitting beside Geralt before the cooled ashes of the fire.

Geralt downed the water. “Sorry, was that question or are you just –”

Emhyr shook his head. His eyes were tired, not completely focused yet, but the corners of his mouth were pinched upwards into a small yet genuine smile. Even hungover he managed to retain his dignity.

“The sunrises in Toussaint are most beautiful,” he said.

“Emhyr, about last night –”

“Silence,” Emhyr murmured, and rested his hand on Geralt’s thigh. Geralt stilled, his face warm. “Either you wish to pursue it, or not. For now...”

For now, Geralt turned his gaze in the same direction as Emhyr’s to the horizon, where they watched the sun cast hues of gold and pink and orange across the vineyards. It really was beautiful – a sight Geralt decided to appreciate more often from now on. Emhyr did not pull his hand away, so Geralt covered it with his own, and waited until the sun was higher to tilt his head to meet Emhyr’s mouth once more.

* * *

**eight.**

They barely made it back into the house before the clothes started coming off.

Geralt kicked his bedroom door shut behind him, hard enough to rattle the portrait badly hidden in the corner of the room. It was enough to draw Emhyr’s attention – a brief, startled double-take at seeing Geralt’s nude, painted figure atop a horse, followed by a smirk that could only be described as _wicked_ – before Geralt growled and dragged him down to the bed, fingers fumbling at Emhyr’s strained pants.

“Eager, I see.”

“Like you’re not?” Geralt said, freeing him the same time Emhyr’s hands found him.

Emhyr managed to take his shirt off and pushed Geralt off him to relieve him of the same, pupils dilated and breath coming fast. Geralt dragged his fingers across the massive scar on Emhyr’s side, tracing it with his mouth. Emhyr groaned and arched – _finally_ without dignity – into the touch, shuddering when Geralt took him in hand and wrapped his lips around his length.

“I fear this will be a very short encounter if you continue that, witcher,” Emhyr gasped, his hands clenched in Geralt’s hair, half holding him down, half pulling him away.

Geralt’s cock twitched near violently, suddenly wanting very much to keep going until he felt Emhyr shudder against his tongue, but he reluctantly pulled away. “Can’t have that now, can we,” Geralt drawled, and crawled back up him rock his hips against Emhyr’s, their lengths sliding together in the coarse grip of his hand until Emhyr came with a silent cry, shuddering through his climax. Geralt felt his hand clench at his back and buried his face at the crook of Emhyr’s neck and shoulder, and felt himself come apart at the seams.

They lay together, twisted in the sheets, bodies cooling with sweat as their breathing slowed.

“Geralt…”

“Mmph.”

“That rather remarkable portrait of you. Is it for sale?”

“Shut up, Emhyr.”

* * *

**nine.**

Emhyr stopped using the guest bedroom after that.

* * *

**ten.**

It was another month before they received a letter from Nilfgaard.

Geralt didn’t open it, much as he wanted to; he carried it to Emhyr with no small amount of trepidation, and waited for the man to break the seal.

“It is from Cirilla.”

Geralt had known that.

Emhyr read the letter silently, then folded it when he was done. “She says it is once again safe for me to emerge from hiding – to return to Nilfgaard.”

“Will you?” Geralt asked.

“Is there a reason for me not to?”

Why did everything have to be a _game_ with the man? “What do you want me to say, Emhyr?” Geralt asked. “You want me to ask you not to leave?”

Emhyr didn’t reply.

Geralt nearly growled in frustration. “Go back to Nilfgaard,” he ordered. “Talk to your daughter and try not to be so – _you_ about it. Don’t lift that eyebrow at me, you know what I mean. Tell her the same stuff you told me.”

After a moment’s contemplation, Emhyr said, “I don’t suppose you would –”

“Oh, no,” Geralt interrupted. “I’m not playing the middle man in this. You talk to her yourself. Then, I don’t know –” He found himself stumbling over the words as they spilled out, face heated, “I’ll have another round of gwent and a bottle of wine ready if you want to come back to Corvo Bianco afterwards.”

The expression Emhyr wore was too neutral for the average person to identify it, but Geralt felt him practically oozing – triumph? Satisfaction? Or –

“I find retirement to be quite agreeable,” Emhyr said, stepping closer to Geralt. “And no doubt Cirilla has earned herself a reprieve. When all has been said and done, I would very much like to come home.”

Geralt’s eyebrows shot up.

Emhyr merely offered him a mild smile, and drew closer again. “Until my return, Witcher.”

“Well,” Geralt managed to say, his hand coming up to gently clench in Emhyr’s shirt, “you don’t have to leave right _now_.”

“No,” Emhyr agreed. “I do not.”

**Author's Note:**

> tl;dr summary:
> 
> Emhyr: [thinks he's about to die, expresses an emotion]  
> *two weeks later*  
> Emhyr, alive: Unacceptable
> 
> I needed to [take a break from the sequel to my book](https://hlmoorewrites.tumblr.com/deathsembrace), and also I've been completely obsessed with astolat's Geralt/Emhyr fics, so this was inspired by basically everything she's written for the pairing, and also acts as a gift/token of my appreciation. Thanks, astolat! Hope everyone enjoys this small offering to the fandom.


End file.
